Kiddos

I’ve never claimed to be the perfect parent. I don’t do things consistently from anybody’s “book” and I try to trust my gut for the majority of my parenting decisions. Lately I’ve started to notice how sensitive my toddler is becoming.

For instance, we went on vacation to the Oregon Coast last week. One of the hotels we stayed at had a pool that you could look at from the end of the hallway. After dinner that night, we were coming back to the room and while waiting for the door to be unlocked, Jake strolled to the end of the hall, Natalia right be hind him. The second she saw the pool, she knew she did not want to go right to bed, even though it was already 9:30 pm. We tried taking her into the room to put on her suit (because if ever there is a time to toss aside bedtime and routine, it’s a vacation) but she wasn’t having it. Jake ended up taking her down to the pool and just sitting on the side while she put her feet in. After 10-15 minutes he explained to her that they needed to go back to the room and either change their clothes or go to bed. She screamed bloody murder the entire way to the room. (Oh, and for a solid 20 minutes after). How we didn’t end up with anyone knocking on our door about the noise, I’ll never know. As I sat there watching it unfold and watching the tiniest things thereafter set her off all over again, I thought about how just waiting to go check out the pool could’ve avoided the entire situation.

She has had other similar situations where the smallest thing (ex: closing the door when we get home & forgetting to ask her to do it), causes a full blown tantrum, complete with screaming, flailing, and even hurting herself. Sometimes I find myself hurrying to get something or another done and I need to instead take the time to really slow down and do things at a toddler’s speed. I know a big part of it is that she doesn’t communicate verbally well, but we’ve found a few ways to really get her to start talking a little more and she goes to speech therapy 2 times a week. I’m hoping it will be easier to avoid these tantrums and meltdowns once she can find a way to tell us what she needs, feels, or thinks.

My daughters have to have something to do ALL the time, so I knew I was going to have to find plenty of activities for them while they are home every day for the summer. One idea I came up with was starting a compost pile for our garden. It’s something we can basically add to every day, and it’s a way they can learn to help naturally fertilize our soil. Win-Win.

When preparing for a compost pile, you want to decide if you want to build an open spot on the ground for your compost or a closed area for your compost pile. I wanted to have our compost pile in our garden area, so it would be convenient when it was time to spread the compost on the garden. Another factor that I considered is that I didn’t want to attract animals into the garden by having an open compost pile, so I chose to purchase a really big black trash can with a lid. We drilled holes down the sides of the trash can so air could circulate through it since we chose a closed system.

You want a nice mixture of dead and “live” plants to start a nice base for your compost (something dry and something to provide a little moisture). You can also add things like soil. We managed to find a decent sized pile of dead leaves from a tree we had cut for firewood, so we layered that on the bottom of the trash can. On top of that we layered some long, leafy green plants that we had as a result of thinning out our flower bed, so that is what we added to the pile. We then put the lid on and rolled the trash can to help mix the dead leaves with the green plants.

Almost every day we add to our pile. When we were canning strawberry preserves, we added the capped part of the strawberries that we don’t use for the preserves. Other things we add are: banana peels, carrot peels, apple cores, etc. You never want to add any type of cooked food. Also remember to add dead, dry plants every so often. It’s important for it not to be too wet or too dry, so you have to find a good balance. We have found that rolling the trash can every 2-3 days is sufficient for us for the amount of scraps we put in it.

We are really enjoying seeing how it breaks down (slowly), and how we are beginning to use it on our garden. My girls are very proud of themselves and look forward to adding to it daily!

What fun summer activities are on your to-do list?

My oldest daughter, Hannah Kate really excelled with reading this past year when she was in Kindergarten. We are continuing with reading throughout the summer, and Taylor is learning to recognize important sight words. I thought I would share what books we have enjoyed, not just this summer, but even since I was just reading to them before bedtime.

First and foremost, the books we enjoy immensely are the Llama Llama books! I love how it takes real life situations and puts them in a fun rhyme for children 2 years of age and up. They have also been great beginning reader books for my 5 year old.

Another set of books my 4.5 year old “diva princess”, Taylor, loves is Pinkalicious. They say they are for 5-7 year olds, but she has been loving them since she was 3. These are about a girl with a BIG imagination, who loves pink, sparkles, princesses, and anything girly! These books also come in “levels” of how hard they are to read, so it’s a great series of books to purchase to “grow” with.

Last, but definitely not least, we Love the Biscuit series! There is a wide variety to choose from, and they are the PERFECT books for beginner readers. My girls’ favorites are “Biscuit Goes to School” and “Biscuit Finds a Friend”.

What are some of your favorite books for your children? Have your families enjoyed any of the ones mentioned here?

When I first began purchasing cloth diapers, I had NO clue what I was doing. Nobody around me used cloth (and only recently have I convinced some friends to purchase some), so it was something I walked into blindly. I think the first two diapers I ever bought were used Trend Lab diapers, that weren’t in the “good used condition” they were described as, but “play condition” at best, and I paid entirely too much for them. I was disappointed when I received them (and never even used them), which almost swayed me from purchasing or researching more.

My next problem was that I had only prepped some of these diapers and NEVER reached for anything except my BG 4.0’s, Freetimes, and custom-made WAHM hybrids, so I had a plethora of fluffy goodness surrounding me in perfect, pristine condition, but ultimately they were just “collecting dust”.

So now I am left to destash all these unused diapers, and at a considerable loss, but I’m looking forward to being “satisfied” with the stash I will have as a result. I plan on purchasing twelve more 4.0’s and eight more Freetimes, as well as continuing to purchase more WAHM hybrids from Crunchy Love Co. and Wyse Bottoms (among a few others). One “problem” I seem to have is that I have to have an even number of every diaper I have. So if I have one more in a color, instead of selling off that one extra in that color, I purchase one more of all the other colors!

My only fear is that I will just continue to BUY BUY BUY instead of actually being happy enough with what I have. I started cloth diapers to save money, but every time I turn around I have more fluff mail getting delivered. I’m pretty sure I have spent enough to diaper TWO kids in SPOSIES from birth to potty learning! Bleh! Here’s to hoping I reach “Stash Nirvana” soon! (At least I have a “plan” on how I *think* I am going to get there!)